WASHINGTON — The American Medical Association (AMA) presented Ellen Provost, D.O., with the Dr. Nathan Davis Award for Outstanding Public Service. Dr. Provost is the director of the Alaska Native Epidemiology Center—a position she has held since 2005—and has served the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) for nearly 20 years.

The ANTHC is a non-profit Tribal health organization designed to meet the unique health needs of Alaska Native and American Indian people living in Alaska. The organization serves and partners with more than 170,000 patients across the state, and Dr. Provost has led their Tribal Epidemiology Center since 2005. In that time, she has successfully led efforts to secure funding and implement programs to support the Alaska Native population, address health disparities, and work toward achieving health equity.

Dedicated to ensuring her patients don’t suffer unnecessarily from preventable conditions, one of the projects that Dr. Provost supervises is the NCI SEER Alaska Native Tumor Registry (ANTR). The ANTR collects, analyzes, and disseminates cancer data, this project identified colon cancer as the leading preventable cause of new cases of cancer in the Alaska Native population. As a result, Dr. Provost and her team received generous funding to implement patient navigation services and mass colorectal screening clinics. Dr. Provost's work has saved lives, made communities stronger and will continue to make a difference in the lives of Alaska’s Native populations. 

“Dr. Provost’s positive impact on the health of the Alaska Native population is immeasurable,” said AMA Board Chair Jack Resneck, Jr., M.D. “She has saved lives, strengthened communities, and created not just the building blocks, but a strong infrastructure, that can improve health outcomes for Alaska Native people for generations to come. By identifying the challenges unique to this population and building concrete steps to solve them, she has personally improved the health of Alaska.”

Provost was one of eight honorees chosen this year to receive the Dr. Nathan Davis Award for Outstanding Public Service. The award, named for the founding father of the AMA, recognizes elected and career officials in federal, state or municipal service whose outstanding contributions have promoted the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.

Provost is a graduate of Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine and University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine. The AMA presented her the Dr. Nathan Davis Award last night at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. as part of the AMA’s National Advocacy Conference.